As a parent, there is absolutely nothing I wouldn’t want my children to feel like they could come to me about. I’m not just thinking about all of the big things they will face in life. I also want them to be comfortable sharing the little things. There is nothing trivial about a parent-child relationship. The same can be said about our relationship with God.

The moment we start making things off limits to bring before the LORD, our closeness with Him begins to shrink. Why is it that kids don’t come to their parents about certain things? They either don’t trust them with the information, don’t think that their parents will care, or they want to hide it. The same is true to how we relate to Yahweh.

If there is something that we aren’t bringing to God, I would like to suggest it’s perhaps it’s born out of some sort of mistrust, deception, or apathy. Maybe God could care less about whatever it is. Maybe I’m not proud of something therefore I’ll just avoid the whole prayer thing. Maybe the love of God really isn’t so big to forgive me of what I’ve just done. Maybe I can just handle this on my own. I’ll get God involved as a last measure if I can’t iron it out. Maybe God really won’t help me out here. Those are all lies that, no doubt, everyone reading this post has told themselves at one time or another. I’ve told myself every single one of them.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Psalms‬ ‭8:3-4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

God is infinite, and that can scare us. After all, how do you approach someone who is absolutely perfect in every way? Why would the creator of existence itself care one bit about my issues? Love, that’s how. A love far greater than any human is capable of demonstrating. It’s a perfect love, therefore it’s unfamiliar to us. We read about it. We were shown it through the life of Jesus. And yet, we doubt it. Even the most ardent believer battles with it at times. We have never been shown perfect love by another person, nor have we ever given perfect love ourselves. Therefore we translate our failures and the failures of others into our views of God. We retreat from Him time and time again because thats how we’ve related to those in our lives. We keep bits of ourselves back. We disclose what we want and work through everything else.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Philippians‬ ‭4:4-6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

What will it take for you, for me, to become an open book before the LORD? Do yourself a favor first off and admit that you’re not. Every one of us are holding back somehow, in some way. He’s not too busy for us. He’s not above our needs and worries. His love is not limited. We can trust Him, far more than any of us do.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews‬ ‭4:16‬ ‭ESV‬‬